About the conference

On September 19-21, 2006, the WGBH Educational Foundation hosted a conference on “Open Content and Public Broadcasting.” The goal was to explore public broadcasting issues related to producing and distributing open access content across multiple platforms.

“Open Content and Public Broadcasting” brought together a diverse selection of stakeholders in the public broadcasting system, academics who promoted Open Content in higher education, industry leaders in new media and technology, experts in intellectual property rights, and leaders in philanthropy.

The group discussed how Open Content might further our public service mission and help us pursue strategic business models and sustainable solutions. It also examined the unique barriers that public broadcasting faces in an Open Content environment and offered ideas for overcoming those obstacles.

About this site

This site is intended to build on the conference results by widening the discussion to include the entire public broadcasting community. You are invited to read the White Paper conference report, which gives details on participants and panels, shares the key points discussed, summarizes the group’s conclusions, and presents recommendations from the WGBH planners.

You can also listen to audio files of the conference sessions, or read transcripts of the sessions.

Most importantly, you can share your opinions on how public broadcasting — at the local or national level; in television, radio, and new media; as content producers and disseminators — can best operate in the newly-emerging Open Content environment. We have set up discussion threads on the issues and challenges we face, and we also invite you to create new topics for discussion.

It's clear that Open Content offers us new opportunities to fulfill public broadcasting’s unique educational mission. Your comments will help to develop new projects and new best practices as we chart our course in this new area. We hope you will share this site with your public broadcasting colleagues, and we look forward to hearing from you.